No Love For Nuke In CS:GO’s Pro-Level

Esports News – After the CS:GO map, Nuke, received a much-needed revamp, it still fails to see enough screen time on the competitive scene. For example, the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice tournament in February only had Nuke picked twice for the entire duration of the week-long tournament.

Like IEM Katowice, it boasts a hefty $400,000 prize pool which makes it one of the hottest tournaments to watch in the CS:GO scene. With that in mind, you’d think that the teams who competed in the tourney would do everything that they could to win the major. In which, teams should have the ability to play on any map against any team.

Teams avoid playing Nuke

In reality, though, that’s not the case. Thanks to the veto process, even the top teams avoid playing Nuke. Even if they dedicate time and effort to it, with boot camps and daily training, there’s not a team that can play all the maps at a high level. Nuke has been a part of the competitive map pool for a while now. It received rework after rework, but teams avoid playing it any chance they get.

Moreover, the changes Nuke received didn’t bring much difference to the map. But, key areas were removed and changed with the notable additions of the new boxes. This can only mean two things for non-Nuke and Nuke players, and those who are accustomed to playing the map before could be surprised with the new changes. Similarly, non-Nuke players may find the revamped map much more playable, like G2 Esports’ AWPer, kennyS, who prefers playing on the revamped Nuke because of the absence of the catwalk, which made the map more open for him as an AWPer.

Time will tell

The map is unused and unpopular and was speculated that it may get removed from the map pool with the hopes of the return of Dust 2 in the active pool instead. Furthermore, Dust 2 received a new look as well. But with the changes to Nuke, the map may stick around longer. Especially, if the teams were to find out the strategies that work on Nuke, it could easily become the more popular map. We’ll just have to wait if the map is really viable in the pro-level. Although this may mean that our hopes for the return of Dust 2, might not be pushed through.